TCP Wings Of Desire
by Rossi
Summary: Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.


[TCP] Wings of Desire.  
  
By Rossi.  
  
Dedication: A late (extremely late) birthday fic for Oberon. Since I only found out last week that his birthday was on the 24th of December, this has been simmering in the back of my head. Happy Birthday, Obie. :)  
  
Disclaimer: The mutant concept is Marvel's, although they don't half use it as well as they could. The Common People Project is the joint brain-child of Phil Foster and Kielle. No profit made, just a warm fuzzy feeling. ;) The rest is mine, except Stephen Niles, who is Oberon's creation and is borrowed without permission, since this is meant to be a surprise. You can kill me later, Obie.  
  
Rating: G - some disturbing themes, but nothing heavy.  
  
Feedback: rossifics@yahoo.com.au Much appreciated, and replied to usually pretty promptly. ;)  
  
____________________________________________________  
  
They say, "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."  
  
I always wondered about that when I was a kid. I couldn't understand why it would be such an awful thing, getting what you wished for. I know what I wanted, more than anything else in the world. The secret desire that I hugged to my chest at night, and which featured in my nightly prayers until I turned sixteen.  
  
I wanted to fly.  
  
I don't mean become a pilot. Or a skydiver, or even a hang-glider. I wanted to fly under my own power, feel the wind against my face and through my hair, hear the cries of the birds unhindered by a noisy, smelly engine, dive into the white fluffy gloriousness of the clouds.  
  
I wanted to be a mutant.  
  
Pretty early on I figured that would be the only way to get my wish. Not long after I broke my arm, jumping off the garage roof with a towel tied around my neck like a super-hero cape. They kept me in for observation, worried that I might have cracked my skull as well, and I remember sitting in bed, eating green Jello from a plastic cup with my left hand, since my right was in plaster, and watching the TV above my bed. The news came on, and there was footage of the X-Men in some fight or other. I can't remember what it was about, because the important thing for me was that there was this lady, with reddish-brown hair that had a stripe like a skunk's, and she was _flying_.  
  
The TV guy was raving on about the mutant menace, something that I'd heard of before, but it hadn't really factored into my life at that stage, so I didn't really pay attention. I was seven years old, interested in playing baseball and football and trading comics and playing cards, and getting into scraps with my buddies. But after that, I became. well, a little obsessed, I suppose. I started collecting everything I could about the X- Men, and mutants. Soon I could name the entire team, rattle off their powers at the drop of a hat, convinced my pals to play "X-Men" with me. They used to think it was funny that I always wanted to be Rouge, because Rouge was a girl, but I didn't care. I had my own reasons for wanting to be her.  
  
My parents were a bit unnerved by all this, as you can imagine. They understood, you see, what being a mutant really meant, at that time, in that place. But I didn't care, I just kept collecting my clippings and waiting eagerly for puberty to start and my powers to surface. I was positive, you see, that it would happen. It _had_ to.  
  
Only it didn't. My voice started changing, I got zits, I shot up from five feet to five feet nine seemingly overnight, but I didn't get any powers. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. by the time I hit seventeen, I had pretty much given up. A routine blood test when I offered myself as a blood donor confirmed it. I was human. _Only_ human.  
  
For a while, it was like the end of the world. It had been my dream for as long as I could remember - one of my earliest memories was of being swung around and around by a babysitter, until it felt like all she had to do was let go of my arms, and I would go spiralling into the wild blue yonder. But gradually I got over it, as you always do. Time is a great healer, and I spent the next five years studying and playing and working, doing anything, in fact, except dreaming. I graduated high school, got into a small community college, became an accountant for a local business. It seemed all my dreams were dead.  
  
And then I met this guy in a bar.  
  
Sounds like a joke, doesn't it? "A man walks into a bar." It is a joke, I suppose, some great cosmic amusement that we haven't quite worked out yet. Because when I met Stephen Niles, I met the only person who could resurrect that old childhood dream of mine.  
  
I don't remember much of our conversation that night. Something along the lines of, "I have the power to give people mutant powers, would you like me to try it on you?" "Hell, yes!", only with a lot more padding. Small talk. What I do remember is that all he did was lay one narrow, long-fingered hand on mine.  
  
It's getting harder to concentrate, the closer to dawn it gets. Already I can feel the restlessness building, the desire to be free to ride the thermals rising from the red-walled cliffs of the Canyon, to go soaring over Boulder so high the buildings are tiny white specks. And it's getting harder to speak; every day, I lose a little more of my humanity. My hands and arms are long since gone, and I haven't been able to wear shoes for the last six months - my feet now yellow-scaled and the toes curled into wickedly sharp talons. The beak took some getting used to, as it slowly grew, the skin of my face already stubbled with light-brown feathers, but it made it easier to eat the slabs of raw meat I had delivered by the local butcher.  
  
The books say I'm a fine, if over-large, specimen of a golden eagle. The mirror tells me I'll never be human again. The wildness inside me tells me only of the joy of flight, the need to be free and unshackled. I know if leave this room today, as I know I must, I will probably never come back.  
  
Be careful what you wish for.  
  
The End. 


End file.
